Around 125 people attended a recent community-wide potluck picnic at Pitts Park.
“I choose love. I choose compassion, inclusion, equality, community.”
With those words, 10-year-old Gracey Eller of Clarkesville set the tone for a gathering last week at Pitts Park that celebrated diversity over division.
The potluck picnic in the park on August 15 served up both food and fellowship. The gathering was hosted by Dream Weavers and ARC which are organizations that serve adults with developmental challenges.
It was a timely event given the current social and political climate in America. Some who attended spoke openly of their concerns about racism, bullying, discrimination, and violence. Others momentarily laid aside those concerns and simply embraced the chance to visit with old friends and meet new people.
“Everyone’s supposed to be able to be together, work together, live in a world with no fear like I grew up in, and they can’t.”
“I welcome everyone from all walks of life,” host Billy Cannon said as he greeted the crowd. Cannon and his fellow Dream Weavers decorated the park gazebo with posters and banners. On pieces of cloth they wrote and sewed words like ‘Love’, ‘Kindness’, ‘Helping Others’, ‘Empathy’, and ‘Peace’ – visual reminders of the hope that infused the gathering, juxtaposed against a backdrop of unease.
“I’m nervous because of the world the way it is now,” Melissa Eller told Now Habersham. Eller is an Air Force veteran. Despite her military training, she said bringing her daughter Gracey and two other children to an outdoor gathering in the wake of recent mass shootings made her anxious.
“I’m nervous for my kids. Are they going to make it past 6, and 10, and 1? Are they going to make it through a line at Walmart? Am I going to make it out with them? Are they going to make it through school?” she asked, rhetorically. “Everyone’s supposed to be able to be together, work together, live in a world with no fear like I grew up in, and they can’t.”
Intolerance weighed just as heavy on some people’s minds.
“Some people are really struggling because they’re not getting accepted by some other people and I’m just here to let them know that I accept them and so should other people,” said Tiara Turk of Cornelia. The Wilbanks Middle Schooler attended the community picnic with members of her church. Her cousin Julia Johnson was also there. The Habersham County 9th grader said she knows what it’s like to be bullied. “We all just need to come together and be like one big family and support each other and lift each other up and not drag each other down.”
That was the point organizers hoped to make – that it’s time to break the chains of fear and intolerance.
“It’s important to let people know that we can come together and we can live together and it’s important that we do so,” said Shady Grove Baptist Church Bishop Ernest Burns. “It’s just good to show the world that we’re the catalyst for what America should look like, being here together.”
And if organizers have their way, they’ll be together again. They say they were extremely pleased with the turnout and hope to make the potluck picnic an annual event.
